In the Autumn of 2018, in the company of musician/ composer Chuck Johnson, I criss-crossed Europe performing “Unlit Trail”. After our final concert in Olso, Norway, Chuck boarded a plane to California, and I drove two hours south across the Swedish border to the home of my dear friends Mariam Wallentin and Andreas Werliin. Mariam and Andreas were leaving on their own tour in the morning, so I spent the following three days alone in their woodland cabin.
Not far from the cabin, a well-trodden path thread through the hills to a cold, mysterious little lake – sitting between two ridges, tirelessly reflecting black treetops, luminous saplings, and blurry stones. I made a drawing of that wild place, which serves as the cover of this record. If you look closely, perhaps you will see unlit trails tightly sewn into the shoreline thickets, trails that can only be crawled upon and offer only darkness as a destination.
During the fleeting daylight hours of those three Fall days, I scrambled and scraped amongst boulders and birches, thin Scots pines and low-growing junipers. At dusk each evening, I set to work recording this album by candle and firelight, while my shadow drifted off to explore the trails hidden within the high, black lake.